Idea 210 of 500. Cluster 10: Tea, beyond the auction
Smallholder tea from the low country as a named origin, the way coffee has named regions
The mechanism, from the book
The Colombo auction sells tea by the lot to a buyer who blends it under his own name. Every step after the auction is where the money is, and every step can be done here by somebody who is not a plantation company.
Every idea in cluster 10 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Collect samples from 5 smallholders in the low country, taste them side by side with a local taster, and write a one-page profile of what makes that district's tea different. Send the samples and the page to 5 speciality tea shops abroad and ask whether they would list a named low-country origin. The proof is one shop that asks for a price list.
- Who pays first
- A speciality tea shop abroad that already sells coffee and tea by region and wants an origin its competitors have never heard of.
- What leaves today
- Smallholder low-country tea disappears into anonymous blends, so the districts that grow it have no name the world can ask for.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. ElevenThe Mechanisms
The auction and every step after it - Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
Tea whose name the world has known for 200 years
More from cluster 10
- 201Single-estate teas sold direct to consumers abroad by subscription, with the estate's story
- 202A tea sommelier course in Nuwara Eliya, certified, for the hotel trade of the world
- 203Tea tasting rooms in Kandy, Ella and Colombo run like wine bars
- 204Cold-brew and sparkling Ceylon tea in cans for the Gulf and Asia
- 205Matcha-style ground green tea from the upcountry, for cafés
- 206Tea cosmetics: creams and serums with a named estate's extract
Idea 210 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.